


To Sink Or To Strive Towards The Light

by afteriwake



Series: nongentorum [34]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e23-24 The Woman/The Heroine, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Introspective Sherlock, Light Angst, Male-Female Friendship, POV Sherlock Holmes, Past Drug Addiction, Past Relationship(s), Past Sherlock Holmes/Jamie Moriarty | Irene Adler, Sad Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes & Joan Watson Friendship, Sherlock-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7381441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock ponders his relationship with “Irene” after Jamie is captured, and whether it is worth trying to strive to be better or stay the way he is now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sink Or To Strive Towards The Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenSkyOverMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenSkyOverMe/gifts).



> So this is another story for **GreenSkyOverMe** inspired by an untranslatable word, and this time it's for the Elementary fandom! When I saw the word used in the fic I immediately thought of Sherlock and Irene, and then thought that perhaps that was what he had felt after she was murdered and wondered what he might have felt after he had learned the truth, and this was the fic that came out. It's set during a specific time in the tagged episode, after Jamie is captured in the hospital room but before the very last scene with Joan and Sherlock on the roof when he tells her he named the bee after her. I do hope all of you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

“Do you want me to leave?”

He let the question hang in the air, knowing that the silence would eventually force Joan into leaving. She would accept his silence as a yes, even though he was not entirely sure he wanted her to leave. He was not entirely sure about anything at the moment, to be quite honest. The reveal that Irene was alive had flipped his entire world upside down, though it had given him hope.

The further reveal that Irene Adler was, in fact, the nefarious Moriarty had flipped it again, in all the worst ways.

Once the door shut behind her he looked out the window at what he could see of the street below in the darkened evening. This was not to say the neighborhood in which their brownstone was poorly lit, but it was more that he was not choosing to focus on the areas where the light was prevalent. He felt, in a way, that there was little light left in his life these days. He knew that there _was_ light, of course, and he was not sinking into despair, but it was causing him to choose to ponder things of a darker nature.

For all intents and purposes, Irene Adler was dead and gone. She had not really existed at all; she was the product of a ruse by Jamie Moriarty for the purpose of fooling people, most of all him. But there was a portion of him that still longed for her, that still wished to feel her embrace and kiss her and love her. He fervently wished that portion of himself would go away, bury those feelings deep down or extinguish them completely.

He knew the Portuguese had a word that was not truly translatable into English that summed up the emotions he felt, the word _saudade_. The roughest translation was "the love that remains," and it basically meant that after someone was gone, it was the deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for something or someone you once loved. He had felt it for years after he had felt that Irene had been murdered, tried to dull it with alcohol and heroin and other drugs, and had only realized since he had met Joan that he could not. He had learned to cope with that state in other ways.

He had felt he had a grip on it, and then Jamie Moriarty had waltzed back into his life again, brushed off her Irene Adler persona to play a game with him, and then torn it to shreds in front of his eyes with a simple removal of clothing and later a simple change of accent and a gun, and he was back at square one, looking at the road ahead with two options: did he bury his _saudade_ in that haze of drugs and alcohol again, disappointing Joan and Alfredo and Gregson and a number of others, or did he learn from the mistakes of his past and try to push ahead and take each day one step at a time?

He moved his gaze away from the dark and looked up at the sky. For once the sky seemed clear, and from what he could observe it almost seemed as though there were nine hundred stars twinkling, though he knew that was an overexagerration and an underestimation at the same time. It seemed that was the way his life was now, a series of situations that made little sense, where things were wildly overblown and yet frustratingly simple and still so hard to understand, all because of games that Jamie Moriarty decided to play with him and those in his circle of orbit for her own amusement.

And yet...and yet, a part of him still felt a nostalgic love for the facade that had been Irene Adler, even now that he knew the truth. He knew no matter what, he would always feel a love for that woman, that vibrant and beautiful goddess made flesh, no matter how dastardly she was at the core of her being. And part of him despised himself for it, it was true, but even deeper down, a part of him felt that, perhaps, that was why he was how he was. That that was the only type of woman he _could_ love, being the broken man he was. Even though Joan tried to fix him, patiently and painstakingly, he would never be wholly put back together. Pieces would be missing and he would always be flawed and Irene...Jamie...would be the only type of woman he could ever love because she was broken and damaged and flawed just as he was.

If there was ever a more depressing thought when it came to the future of his heart and who it could be given to, he wasn’t sure he wanted to think it.

He roused himself from his spot by the window. It did no good to dwell on these maudlin thoughts. They would simply drive him to the very vices he knew he needed to avoid. It was best to go among those who cared, to those who saw the best in him. Better to strive towards Joan than to fall towards Jamie. He made his way towards the door and popped his head out. “Watson? I’m starved. Chinese, I think. Your treat.”

Yes. Best to strive towards the light.


End file.
